Description:

Here is a full hack which changes all the level layouts for Super Mario Bros. In this hack you will ascend Bowser’s Tower till you reach the top! Also included are some ASM tweaks and also includes the Hammer Suit!

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User Review Information

The Ultimate Test

At the time of this writing, this is the best Super Mario Bros. hack I have ever played, hands down. You have to make your way to the top of the tower, and each floor presents a new challenge. Some will be a barrage of enemies. Some will be an obstacle course. Some will be underwater. Some will reverse your control inputs, causing Luigi to move backwards. That’s just the warm-up; by the time you reach double digits, you’ll be dealing with several of these at a time and more! You’ll be put into situations that you’ll have no idea how to solve, but that’s what’s so brilliant about this hack: I learned more about the Super Mario Bros. engine than I had across the decades I’ve been playing it! The hack is very challenging, but also very fun; there’s really nothing like barreling down a corridor of monsters at breakneck speed, while avoiding pits and other traps that come at you just as quickly! It does occasionally put you into an unfair situation, but the level design is still excellent.

Aesthetically, the game excels, too; the backgrounds are a simple geometric pattern in a dark cyan color, and the music for most stages is a small sample of The Extreme from Final Fantasy 8. This is one of my favorite video game tunes of all time, and while it doesn’t sound nearly as good in chiptune, it takes on a whole new life here, and combined with the backgrounds, and the slightly altered enemy palettes, it creates a really neat atmosphere that you’d see in the occasional early NES title, like Deadly Towers or Deathbots. Yeah, I know those aren’t exactly critical darlings, but they have a charming atmosphere to them. Anyway, there are a few rooms with different colors, but the colors actually mean something, which draws your attention to them even more strongly. The water actually moves, which is a really neat touch, too. It would’ve been really neat to have different music for the entire game, but we do get an underwater rendition of the main song, and it doesn’t really feel like anything is a glaring omission. If you’re a fan of Super Mario Bros., you owe it to yourself to play this.